


where light exists

by kagamiwa



Category: EXO (Band), f(x)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Outer Space, multiverse but is it, soulmates but not really, urban cosmic fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-06 22:13:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18397394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kagamiwa/pseuds/kagamiwa
Summary: First rule of the day: when your boss makes you visit a game arcade that time forgot, run for your life.(or, Soojung starts seeing cosmic ghosts on planet Earth.)





	where light exists

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [kpopolymfics2019](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/kpopolymfics2019) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  **WJSN – "Save Me, Save You"**  
> [lyrics](https://colorcodedlyrics.com/2018/09/cosmic-girls-wjsn-ujusonyeo-save-save-butaghae) **|** [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wOBbRu3OOc) **|** [supplementary](https://www.flickr.com/photos/beansshots/11503096704/) \- [prompts](https://66.media.tumblr.com/9e7ea4af8b58779af3a305b386aa81fc/tumblr_p2mf4xIINk1v2useeo1_640.gif)

As the moon settles firmly into the night, Soojung releases the paper lantern with a gentle push. It hovers in the air for a fraction of a second, like a baby bird hesitating to take its first flight, then as a slight gust of wind flutters the ends of Soojung’s hair around her face, it wobbles its way upwards.

Soojung watches it go with a mixture of hope and regret, leaning against the frame of her window. Below her, streets loop and wind back on themselves, a kaleidoscope of orange streetlights and the red brakelights of lone cars. Above, a mess of stars twinkle back at her. Behind her, her parents watch carefully from her bedroom door. She inhales into the muffled silence, and exhales in a long cloud of vapour.

The lantern floats further away, camouflaged against the night sky as a yellow, unstable star. Then it blinks once, twice, and disappears.

 

 

 

 

 

There are exactly 3 missed phone calls, 2 message and 5 emails waiting for her when Soojung runs into work, dumps her bag on her desk and throws herself into her chair with a groan. She’d just had the worst morning, having her cat throw up on her by way of a good morning greeting, then breaking her favourite mug when she then tripped over said cat and spilled the last sachet of her instant coffee all over the kitchen floor. Which made her miss the bus and subsequently the train, which meant she’d been caught in the rush hour traffic and had to spend the next 45 minutes squashed up against somebody’s shoulder.

Instant recipe for bad mood.

“New assignment,” her boss grunts, walking past her desk with a newspaper tucked under his arm and a takeaway coffee cup from one of the trendier cafes in town in his hand. Soojung glares at it with some resentment. “I’ll see you for a briefing in 15.”

She smiles and nods. As soon as he closes the door to his office, she grabs her wallet and heads out the door. Trendy coffee might cost her a month’s supply of instant coffee and a cheap mug from the reject shop, but she’ll be damned if she doesn’t get her caffeine fix on a day like this.

“Did you suddenly win the lottery?” asks a voice as she’s waiting for her order, and Jongin grins at her teasingly.

“No,” she shoots back, throwing her hair behind her shoulder in what she hopes is a haughty gesture. “I had no other choice.”

“You know, if you wanted to grab a coffee with me you could just say so. I’d be honoured to buy you a coffee any time,” he nudges her playfully, then goes to stand in the line. Soojung rolls her eyes and looks back at her phone. 3 missed phone calls, 2 message and 5 emails, and every single one is a blank dead end. She frowns, checking the sender’s details. [Private number] and [email] are the only words that greet her, and nothing else.

“Who’s that? Your boyfriend?” Jongin peers over her shoulder. Soojung thinks twice about swatting him away and shows him the screen instead.

“Look,” she points. “I’ve been getting stuff like this for a week now. Messages and emails with nothing in them and phone calls from nobody. I have no idea if I somebody’s trying to get a hold of me or if someone’s just playing a very elaborate prank.”

Jongin nods, eyebrows furrowing a little as he takes the phone from her and inspects her call log. “Either way, they don’t seem to be doing a very good job of it. Who was this?” he points at a number that she’d picked up.

“Don’t know,” she shrugs. “All I heard was static on the other side.”

“Maybe it was them,” Jongin passes the phone back to her. “Did you try calling back?”

“I’m not the kind of person who calls strange numbers back.”

“Well, I’d better make sure you’ve saved my number then,” Jongin grins as the barista calls out Soojung’s name. She scoffs and heads towards the pick-up point as he calls after her, “Wanna grab lunch later? I’m dying for some Thai food.”

“Sorry, I might be out on the field,” she calls over her shoulder as she walks away. “I’m getting briefed in 3 minutes, maybe text me later?”

“Do you even have my number?” he calls back. She waves and heads for the lift. It’s an old building, too old for a newbie like her, and the lift creaks and shudders all the way up. If she wasn’t so preoccupied wondering what her new assignment would be, she’d have remembered that one really shouldn’t take old lifts on a terrible day.

“Nostalgia,” her boss booms as soon as she steps into his office, coffee cup in one hand and a journal tucked under her arm.

“Sorry, sir?” she asks as incredulously as she dares, taking a seat in one of the weathered leather and wood swivel chairs. It creaks almost as badly as the lift did and tips forwards slightly. Soojung plants her feet firmly on the ground and places her cup on the corner of her boss’ desk – the only available space amongst the spilling piles of paper and the enormous desk lamp in the other corner.

“Nostalgia,” he repeats, as if she hadn’t heard him the first time. He scribbles something on the notepad beside his laptop, then rips out the page. “People these days are robots. They’ve forgotten how to feel anything entirely. That’s what this month’s issue is going to be about, and you’re going to do the feature for it.” He gets up to pass her the slip of paper, leaning against the side of the desk as she reads it.

“A… video arcade?” Soojung tries to decipher the scribble. She looks up at her boss.

“Bingo!” he shoots finger guns at her and grins a large, gummy grin. “Go scout it today. I want people to read your article and sigh with sentimentality. I want them to feel like they’ve been there before even when they haven’t! Like longing for a lover they’ve never met! Get it?”

Soojung thinks, not for the first time, that she has no idea what he’s talking about but she nods with a well-practiced smile. “Good, good,” he pats her on the shoulder as she leaves. “Oh, and one more thing.” She turns and he drops a small, rectangular object into her hand. “To help get you into the mood.” He smiles at her again as he shuts the door in her face.

Soojung looks at the pager in her hand and half wishes the rickety old lift had plummeted to the ground with her in it. The universe really has it in for her today.

 

 

 

 

It’s warm, warmer than she expected, and she can already feel little beads of sweat forming along her hairline after the short walk from the station. “Well, here we go,” Soojung mutters to herself, looking at the derelict shopfront. She can barely make out the faded, peeling words on the sign as she cringes internally and puts her hand out to push the door open. A bell rings overhead, startling her with its unexpectedly loud, shrill jangle.

Inside is empty, as she expected. The smell of rusty metal and years of terrible ventilation hangs heavy around her head, and the lights look as though they haven’t been changed since the 80s (which, she suspects, they haven’t). Dozens of arcade cabinets line the walls and down the middle of the room, which is larger than she expected. She can barely make out the back of it; the whole room is bathed in a dim yellow light, and Soojung strains to see through the gloom.

“Hello?” she calls out tentatively as she makes her way between the silent machines. Some screens flicker, others seem to be taunting her with their large, flashing STARTs. Some of them are completely blank, and Soojung wonders if machines have ghosts. She certainly feels as though she’s standing in a graveyard, marked by electronic headstones from an era long gone. Her phone buzzes in her jacket pocket.

_How’s the assignment going?_

Soojung imagines Jongin’s nudging grin as she types out _Awful._ She looks around at the wood panel clad walls and cheap terrazzo vinyl on the floor, peeling at the corners where phantom shoes once kicked them up. She wrinkles her nose. _This place smells like the 80s and there’s no one around. How am I supposed to interview anyone around here?_

As she sends the message the machine to her left lights up without warning. She jumps backwards with a muffled scream, colliding with the seat of the machine behind her and dropping her bag on to the ground. The game starts up in its usual fashion, with blinking lights and electronic music, then abruptly cuts into a glitchy blue screen. Soojung thinks the worst is over when the screen fizzles into being, wavy lines replaced by stark 8-bit letters on a fuzzy black background.

**HELLO.**

Soojung freezes, sprawled against an 80s arcade cabinet, a joystick digging into the small of her back. The words disappear. There’s a pause, and then:

**DO YOU READ ME?**

A blank.

**SOOJUNG.**

Soojung grabs her bag from the floor and bolts right out the door. She doesn’t stop running until she’s reached the station, cold sweat sliding down her nose and her blood freezing in her veins.

 

 

 

 

“Soojung.”

“Soojung.”

“Hey, Soojung!”

Soojung bolts upright, heart pounding. Jongin slides into the empty chair beside her and swivels her chair around to peer into her face. “You look awful,” he announces. “Like you’ve seen a ghost. What happened to you?”

“I feel sick,” Soojung mutters, bending forward over her knees, arms crossed over her chest. Her teeth keep chattering and she can’t stop shivering. Jongin touches one of her hands and draws back instantly.

“You’re freezing cold,” he takes her elbow and she looks up at him, feeling like she’s aged a thousand years since this morning. “Come on, I’m taking you home. You can’t stay here like this.”

“But… work…” she whispers, but doesn’t exactly resist. At that moment, her boss walks past. He looks genuinely concerned, and she wonders how bad she really does look to faze a man who usually doesn’t even notice when one of the journalists are snoozing at their desk. “Good God!” he exclaims. “You look terrible, Soojung. Are you feeling alright?”

“I was just going to tell you,” Jongin mentions, picking up Soojung’s bag and hoisting his own camera bag over his other shoulder. “I have to be at _ in an hour for an interview so I’ll just take a short detour and drop her home.”

“Yes, do that,” their boss says quickly. “I wonder what happened. She looked fine before she went out.”

“Maybe it was the space dust,” Soojung quips feebly. He looks relieved that she isn’t ill enough to still try to be funny and waves them off. Jongin offers his arm to her but she shakes her head. “I still know how to walk,” she manages, but she can’t deny that her legs feel like jelly.

“Just be thankful you’re not walking home,” Jongin replies, grabbing a hold of her elbow when she stumbles a little. He keeps a firm grip the whole lift journey down and doesn’t let go even when they step outside. “My bike’s just this way,” he tugs her towards the left.

“Come on Jongin, I’m not a child,” she snaps. They pass a glass shopfront, and she chances a glance at herself just to see how bad she really does look. For a second Soojung doesn’t notice much in the daylight, just that she seems to have darker circles than before. And then she blinks and suddenly her reflection isn’t of her anymore, but of a taller, paler girl with her hair piled in a topknot above her head. Then the girl turns to face her and their eyes meet.

Soojung feels the ground jolt beneath her, as if a shockwave just released from under her feet. It echoes through her body, from the soles of her shoes up to the top of her skull and back down. It lasts a split second before the glass abruptly turns into the naked brick wall of the shop beside it and the girl disappears.

“What’s up?” Jongin asks as she wrenches her arm out of his grip and takes several steps backwards. She holds her breath - but it’s only her, looking washed out and faded in the dirty shopfront of a shady-looking clinic. “Okay, be serious. Are you really seeing ghosts?”

Soojung takes one last look at her reflection. For now, she is the only ghost standing here.

 

 

 

 

Sitting on the floor of the slice of space she laughing calls her living room, Soojung closes her eyes. She doesn’t have to try very hard to imagine the shadows tracing across her ceiling, courtesy of passing cars’ windshields and an abundance of leafy plants out on the tiny shoebox of a balcony. She brings her nose up to inhale the soothing aroma of the green tea in her second favourite mug, pushing her feet up against the kitchen unit. She’s only been at her job for 3 months so she still has some ways to go before she can afford an apartment wider than her arm span, but she does find it cozy. Sometimes.

“Make sure you have a really good rest,” Jongin had said sternly as he put down the bag of things he’d bought from the convenience store around the corner on her dining table slash desk. “I got you some tea, no coffee for you. Hey, Screecher.” He fondled her cat under the neck.

“His name is William Shakespaw and you very well know that,” Soojung flicked the switch on her kettle. “It’s not like this is your first time meeting him.”

“Well if he didn’t screech at me every time I did I wouldn’t call him that,” Jongin shrugged. He looked at his watch. “I’ve gotta run but call me if you need anything okay? Or if you’ve fallen down this very precarious looking ladder and can’t feel your legs anymore.” He cast the ladder leading up to her bed a dubious look.

“It’s perfectly stable so I’ll be fine,” Soojung showed him out. “Hey, uhh, thanks... Jongin.”

He grinned and patted her rather heavily on the head. “What are friends for? I fully expect you to take me out for a 5-course meal after this, mind you.”

Now she takes a sip of tea and leans her head back against the wall, watching another shadow stretch across the ceiling. She can still see the girl in the shop window, as clearly as if she’d actually been standing right there in front of her. The little mole on her left cheek, the escaped tendrils of hair curling around her ears. The expression on her face when their eyes met. As if she’d finally found what she’d been looking for.

“Who are you?” she asks the shadow on her ceiling. It wavers and unfolds itself towards the ladder, stretching itself out of sight.

 

 

 

 

In the silence of her house, the tap running in the bathroom seems a little too loud. Water still dripping from her chin, Soojung looks at herself in the mirror. Since getting into the house she’d been too spooked to look into anything reflective but the tea has calmed down somewhat. Forget aging a thousand years, she thinks. She looks like an ancient being trapped in a 24 year old body with rapidly fading dyed red hair and huge dark circles under her eyes. She blinks, but she’s still there, expression wary. Waiting. “I was imagining it,” she says firmly. At the moment there are two Soojungs, but only one of them is speaking. “The arcade creeped me out so much that my mind started playing tricks on me.” But she can’t shake the thought that, deep down, she had the feeling that she’d been looking for that girl too.

A sudden loud beeping emits from somewhere in the living room. Soojung tears her eyes away from her reflection and exits the bathroom, trying not to imagine that her reflection is still there, waiting for her. The beeps seem to be coming from where she dumped her jacket and bag, but she can’t imagine what could be making the sound. She searches the bag thoroughly but finds nothing. Dropping it back on the ground, she picks up the jacket, shoves her hand into the left pocket, and pulls out something small and sleek.

She stares at the pager. It fits perfectly, innocently, in the palm of her hand, as if it doesn’t know that its sole purpose in life is to annoy the hell out of its owner with an unexpected - and unwanted - message. “What does he want now?” she mutters, thinking about her crazy boss, and sits down at the table to try and decipher the device. Her parents had never used pagers before, and the only time she’s seen them is in medical dramas. Even so, pagers in dramas never beeped for _this_ long.

Soojung grunts as she hits various buttons, none of them working, until she finally manages to get the right one. _(1) New Message_ disappears, replaced by a **ARE YOU ALRIGHT?**

She scoffs. Trust Jongin to pull this kind of thing. He probably asked their boss how to contact her. _I’m fine. Thanks for the tea_ , she types back.

**I'M SORRY I SCARED YOU.**

Soojung stares hard at the message, pulse beginning to race under her skin. She puts down the pager and flexes her fingers, wondering what to do next. Should she call Jongin? He’d definitely know what to do. But something tells her that this is something she has to handle herself.

_Was that you? Back at the arcade?_

**YES. I’M SO GLAD I FINALLY REACHED YOU.**

_Who are you?_

The answer doesn’t come as fast as the previous one did. Soojung waits nervously, half of her impatient to find out just what the hell is going on and the other half not wanting to know at all.

**DON’T YOU REMEMBER ME?**

She swallows. _How can I? I don’t even know what you look like._

**WE SAW EACH OTHER, JUST NOW. IN A SHOP WINDOW.**

Her breath hitches in her throat. The girl in the window, with her long, slim neck and curling strands of hair at her cheekbones, looks back at her as if she recognizes her from a time long ago. A time that Soojung remembers and doesn’t remember simultaneously.

**WE MET BEFORE, A LONG TIME AGO. YOU’LL REMEMBER. IN TIME.**

_What do you want from me?_ Her fingers trip over the keyboard.

An immediate response: _[Message failed to deliver. Try again?]_

She leans back in her chair and releases a long, shaky breath. In that moment, if somebody had told her she was going mad she’d believe them in a heartbeat. Her thoughts keep tumbling over each other, jumping from questioning possibilities to struggling recollections and back. _If I keep thinking this over_ , Soojung thinks, _I’m going to lose my mind._

Drowsiness hits her like a truck. She crawls into bed at 2:30 in the afternoon on a sunny spring day, and promptly falls asleep.

 

 

 

 

Waking from a dreamless sleep, Soojung sits up groggily in bed. The apartment opposite her own is bathed in the vivid yet faded light that only comes with sunset, and streaks of a just passed shower slide down the balcony door. Her cat is pawing at her arm, meowing insistently. She must have passed out for 4 hours at least. “Alright, food’s on its way,” she mutters to William Shakespaw, pushing him to one side as she rolls off the mattress and shimmies down the ladder.

As she places the cat food on the floor, her stomach audibly grumbles. She hasn’t properly eaten anything since morning, with nothing but trendy coffee and convenience store green tea in between. It’s too late to cook anything, so neighbourhood pizza it is.

 _Came by but you didn’t answer the doorbell. I assume you’ve passed out. Text me back so I know you haven’t been abducted by aliens_ , says the message from Jongin, and Soojung grins as she pulls her hood over her ears. Since the rain the temperature has dropped somewhat, but the air feels bracing on her skin.

_I’m alive. The aliens haven’t come for me. Yet._

“Large pepperoni pizza, no cheese, extra chilli. Soojung,” she tells the cashier. “Lactose intolerant,” she adds when the cashier’s eyebrow raises skeptically. _Easy on the souls of the meek_ , whispers a voice beside her ear as she waits for her order. She turns, but as expected, she’s the only person in the pizza place. The sentence replays in her head. She has a strange feeling she’s heard somebody say it before. Once, a long time ago, in a far away place.

“Soojung,” says the cashier, holding out a pizza box. “Large pepperoni, no cheese, extra chilli, easy on the souls of the meek.”

 _I must be in a dream_ , Soojung thinks as she walks home, pizza box held aloft as if she’s afraid it might get wet. _A very long and elaborate dream where arcade machines and pagers can receive messages from nobody, and pizza places can hear my thoughts. That must be it._ That’s when she realizes there’s something written on the cover of the pizza box. She rotates it to face her and reads the hurried scrawl where her name should be:

_You’ll find me in the middle of winter._

“That’s too far away,” she says to the sky. Unexpectedly, her breath mists in front of her face. “I need to find you now.”

 

 

 

 

She’s done after her 5th slice of pizza. Lying on the floor of the living room, belly full of pepperoni (no cheese, extra chilli), she feels suddenly, unbearably lonely. The radio plays muffled, jazzy music from some obscure channel in the background. It’s not as if she hasn’t done this a thousand times before, lying on the floor and staring up at the ceiling and wondering just how she managed to build such a miserable existence for herself, but tonight she can feel the collective gravity of the planets and the stars pressing down on her, pulling her down to the center of the earth. Leaving her there. She can never tell anyone about the strange situation she’s gotten into. They’d never understand. She doesn’t expect them to anyway. How can she ever get someone to understand what is happening to her when she doesn’t even know herself?

She’s a stray asteroid, floating around the infinite confines of space. Waiting for a solar storm to sweep her in the right direction.

“They can all burn,” she whispers to the ceiling, and hot tears prick her eyes. She hates everyone in the world in that moment; her boss with his crazy story ideas for a poky little publication nobody ever reads; Jongin for constantly annoying her with his flirting; her boss again for getting her into this mess in the first place. Soojung feels a scream rising within her. She’s 24 and working for peanuts for a company she doesn’t believe in. She doesn’t have a friend in the world who would have pizza with her on a whim. She has a mysterious person stalking her. Getting into her head. She’s 24 and the universe is going to pieces.

The cat takes the opportunity to jump on the bookshelf, upsetting a row of books, sending them tumbling to the floor. Soojung seizes the opportunity to clamber out of the sea of existential angst and gets to her feet. Getting to her feet has always been the hardest part.

Picking up a book, she scrutinizes the cover. _Parallel Worlds_ says the title. _A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos_. She vaguely remembers trying to read this as a child, but it feels like a far off memory. The book itself is battered, pages spotted with age and curling in the corners when she flicks through it. A sentence catches her eye and she stops at the page.

_'The mind reels when we realize that, according to this interpretation of quantum mechanics, all possible worlds coexist with us. Although wormholes might be necessary to reach such alternate worlds, these quantum realities exist in the very same room that we live in. They coexist with us wherever we go.'_

Soojung cocks her head to one side, suddenly remembering why she never attempted to read this book since her first flick through. She places it back on the shelf.

The notebook is just as she remembers when she picks it up off the floor, with its red ribbon bookmark and plain paper cover. _My Dream Diary_ , it says on the front in a loopy, overly embellished hand. She wonders how she managed to forget that it was even on this bookshelf all this time. She flips it open to the bookmarked page and reads:

_Jinri didn’t come today. I don’t think she’s ever coming back._

Jinri? Eyebrows furrowed, Soojung flips the page back to the second last entry. It’s dated 10 years ago, written in the childish version of her current handwriting. It sends her tumbling back into her 14 year old self.

_23 January _._

_Jinri and I found a house in the countryside. It was very cold and there was snow everywhere. We built a fire and made kimchi jjigae. I found a camera in the cupboard and we took photos. There was only me and Jinri on that world, but I didn’t mind. I think any time I can see Jinri is the best time. She always takes me to the best places._

_P.S.: Jinri told me there might be a day when we can’t see each other again. She told me when that happens that I can’t come looking for her. But I told her I would always save her, if she needed help. She laughed at me. But I would. Hopefully that time will never come._

Soojung puts down the notebook, frowning as she tries to make sense of it all. A dream diary? A house on the countryside? A world with just two people on it? A girl named Jinri? The name calls out to her with its familiarity, and the feel of it on her tongue wants to make her burst into tears. It feels like loss. It feels like her cold hand in a wonderfully warm one.

And yet, with all the mystery, that vague memory of falling asleep. Of waking up in an entirely different universe.

“It’s our call-in contest!” a cheerful voice suddenly exclaims, and she jumps. She hadn’t even realized that the radio was still on. “5th caller through stands a chance to win two tickets to a destination of our choice! And we’ve just got them through!” Soojung moves to turn the radio off when a voice whispers through the airwaves and roots her to the spot.

 _“Soojung,”_ whispers a voice. Soft and scratchy, like it’s coming from a distant star. A ferocious crackling meets the voice and drowns it out for a fraction of a second before it returns. _“It’s me. I’m giving one ticket to you, okay? So come find me. I need –,”_ and that’s when the connection fizzles out entirely.

Soojung picks up the radio and shakes it so hard that she hears something rattle inside it. The name comes so naturally to her that she can’t believe that she even forgot it in the first place. “Jinri? Jinri!” But, as is the norm for radios, it doesn’t answer.

Abandoning the radio, she grabs the notebook and flops back down on the floor. Clutching it to her chest like a lifeline, she closes her eyes.

Here, floating in the far reaches of space, she breathes deep. Inhales the scent of stardust. Feels her body sink into the floor, then deeper still. She’s falling. A pink-cheeked girl turns to face her, grins mischievously and holds out her hand. Soojung reaches out towards her, concentrating on that laughter in her eyes, and steps right out of her body.

There’s the same jolt as before, but she’s stopped falling. She feels almost weightless as she straightens, as if she isn’t tethered to anything anymore. Her feet feel feather light on the floor and she looks around. She’s simultaneously in and not in her apartment. Everything seems blurred around the edges, tinged with a pale hazy glow. Taking a few steps forward, she wrenches the front door open. And walks into the living room of an abandoned country house, a fine layer of dust covering the empty shelves. Through the window she can see the snow beginning to fall.

 

 

 

 

 _I’ve run out of time,_ says the note. _I wanted to tell you everything but it’s too late. I’m sorry I had to leave you, Soojung. I hope you never have to return to this place. Thank you for everything. I will never forget you. – Always and forever, J…_

The rest of the name ends in a violent scribble, as if the person who'd written was suddenly snatched away. Soojung reaches out a hand to touch the fallen pencil beside the dusty sheet paper on the table, but her fingers slip right through with zero resistance. Everything in this room seems even less substantial than the apartment she just left behind, and it makes her nervous. It unnerves her even more to know that she’s been here before.

There, on the faded row of cushions, she’d sat with a girl her age, features blurred and raven black hair wound in two buns on either side of her head. She can hear high, girlish laughter echoing through the walls when she tries to touch them, and aren’t those ashes left in the fireplace from the fire she had built with her own two hands?

She can’t even begin to fathom what’s going on. She tries to sit on the cushions and ends up falling on to bare floorboards. If they’re chilly she can’t feel them. “Why didn’t you want me to return?” she whispers up at the ceiling. Outside, the snow looks as though it’s falling even harder, and every now and then she can see little whirls where the wind spirals through the branches of bare trees. “What did you want to tell me?”

The silence is soft, muffled. Smothering her questions. As if the ghosts of a forgotten past have their hands clamped tight over her ears, trying to keep her from hearing the answers.

She gets up to leave, and that’s when she spots the photos propped up on the shelf. Three in total, polaroid shots. Unlike everything else in the room they seem almost sharp, their colour intense. She approaches them like she’s in a trance, already knowing what she’s about to see. She once took these photos with a camera in a cupboard.

There she is, thin-faced, large eyes. The terrible bangs that haunted her throughout her middle school years. And beside her, a pink-cheeked girl with her hair wound up into two buns on either side of her head. Her eyes laughing, clear as day.

“Jinri,” Soojung breathes. Instinctively she grabs at the photo, shocked to find her fingers clutching on to the smooth glossy print.

Almost immediately, the photo begins burning from under her fingers, a sudden intense orange burst of light in the dull surroundings. Soojung drops it on to the threadbare rug, where it immediately catches fire. “Wait!” she cries, feeling a force tugging her away from the shelf. She grabs at the two remaining photos, feeling them bursting into flame beneath her fingers. The fire begins licking up the walls of the room, and the laughter turns to panicked screams. The sound reverberates through the room amidst the roar of the blaze, barrelling right into Soojung. She feels the vibrations echoing through her, pulling her apart. “Jinri, wait!”

And she wakes up on the living room floor drenched in sweat, panting as if she’s just run a marathon and her heart banging away in her body. A notebook clutched so tightly in her hands that its pages are slightly bent. Gingerly, she unclenches her fingers and inspects the diary.

There, sticking out from between the pages like a lost child. A blank Polaroid.

 

 

 

 

“Whoa, you look even worse than yesterday.” Jongin peers into her face. Her elbows are on her desk, hands on either side of her face as if to block out the glare from the windows. He sets a cup on the surface and slides it towards her. She looks at it, then at him with equal suspicion. “It’s a herbal drink,” he says easily, leaning against the desk with one hand shoved in his pocket. “I got the recipe from my mum.”

“You sure it’s not poison?” she asks skeptically. Jongin scoffs and flicks his head to get a stray hair out of his face, taking a sip of coffee. “Stop trying to look cool, it doesn’t suit you.” She takes the cup and brings up to her face. Takes a grudging sip. It’s not as bad as she thinks, or at least it isn’t as bad as the elixirs her grandmother used to make her drink when she was a child. She tells Jongin this, and he grins, looking pleased.

“Don’t you have an assignment you need to get to?” asks a passing senior with a stack full of paper in his arms. He frowns at them, as if having a moment of reprieve before getting to work is a personal affront.

“Yeah, _ in an hour,” Jongin replies easily.

“Well, get going then,” he snaps back, and stalks off. A piece of paper breaks free from the stack, floating down to the floor with a soft, rhythmic rocking. It reminds her of stepping out of her body and floating back down to earth. Of her footsteps hovering just inches above the floor. Her breath catches in her throat.

“I went to another universe,” she whispers, just as Jongin mutters “You’ll all miss me when I’m gone, you idiots.” She’s immediately distracted.

“Are you leaving?” she asks, startled.

The easy look vanishes from his face, and he looks out of the window for a few beats before turning back to her. “I’m… looking,” he says quietly. “This place is choking me to death.” He aims at the waste basket behind her, and lops the empty coffee cup into it effortlessly. She’d seen him shoot hoops in the university basketball court with the same ease, 5 years ago.

“You can’t leave!” she hisses, grabbing the sleeve of his thin cotton jacket. “You can’t abandon me here. You’re the one who recommended me, remember?”

His laugh a little cynically and gets up as the boss enters the office. “Sometimes you have to know when to let go,” he shrugs. He looks down at her with a strange tenderness in his eyes, then presses a hand to her forehead. His fingers are uncharacteristically cool for such a warm morning, and she squirms slightly under his touch. “Well you’re not running a fever so you’ll be fine.”

“For today or the rest of my life?” she calls after him.

“If you go out with me you know you’re gonna have the best life in the world,” Jongin reverts to his usual sunny smile and a wink as he leaves. “And don’t forget to finish that tea!” he adds, before closing the door.

Soojung takes another sip, looking out the window.

 

 

 

 

Somehow it just doesn’t seem right.

“I’m serious, you don’t need to take me home,” Soojung frowns as somebody jostles past on the crowded train platform, shoving Jongin into her. She steps a little farther away from him. They haven’t taken the train together since their university days, Jongin always preferring to zoom around on his motorbike like he thinks he’s the coolest thing around. He’d always behaved like that.

“I’d be a bad friend if I didn’t make sure you get home safe.” He winces when somebody steps on his foot. “Is it always this bad?”

“Always,” Soojung replies. “You’re not fit for this battle,” she adds, sidestepping a particularly fierce looking woman dressed in a standard drab looking office suit. They’re always easy to spot, tired looking corporate men and women in their suits and polished shoes with expressions like the world could be ending and they would be glad to watch it burn. She used to think choosing a less formal, restricted career would save her from that same bitterness, but she isn’t so sure about that now.

The woman shoves past Jongin rudely and disappears into the crowd.

“You’re just lucky I’m here to take all the blows for you.” An express train rushes into the station, and Soojung freezes in her tracks. Jongin walks right into her. “Hey come on, this isn’t fair. Here I am being nice to you…”

She isn’t listening to him anymore. Because in the windows speeding past her, her reflection isn’t her own anymore. It’s Jinri.

Her head is cocked to one side, eyes trained on Soojung. And Soojung _knows_ Jinri can see her, same as the way she’s seeing her right now. Through the window of a moving train. The screech of the train wheels and the hubbub on the platform dies away as she takes a step closer, barely noticing the person in front of her as she pushes past him. Jinri’s mouth is moving as she raises a hand towards her, speaking words she can’t hear. Soojung’s own hand reaches out to touch her. She’s so close…

“Soojung!” Somebody grabs the back of her jacket and yanks her backwards violently. In the same instant the train rushes past her and exits the station, carrying Jinri away back into the unknown. She stares at its receding tail lights, then at the crowd staring back at her, some with concern and some with scathing looks in their eyes. Jongin’s grip on her arm is vicelike. “What the hell were you doing?” he whispers furiously into her ear as people begin to lose interest in them. “You could’ve gotten seriously hurt, you big idiot!”

“I… I saw…” Soojung’s teeth begin chattering again. “I don’t know,” she whispers. “I don’t know anymore.” She can still feel the lightning speed of the train beneath her fingers, right before Jongin hauled her away. _I could have lost my fingers_ , she realizes with chilling comprehension.

Jongin doesn’t let go of her even when they board their own train, squashed against each other and the strangers around them. Packed together like sheep going to slaughter, in a moving box of steel and kinetic energy. He doesn’t say another word, although his eyes on her tell another story altogether. It’s only when he loosens his grip on her slightly that Soojung realizes he’s shaking.

 

 

 

 

“Jjajangmyun’s here,” Soojung announces, closing the door behind her with her foot as she carefully juggles the plastic bag containing the two piping hot bowls of noodles in her hands. Jongin pours out two cups of cold green tea. They’d tried dragging out her desk in to the living space so they wouldn’t have to squash but it hadn’t worked so they now sit, a little awkwardly, knee-to-knee in the cramped confines under her bedroom ladder. William Shakespaw comes sniffing for food, then settles on the bookshelf above Soojung’s head.

“You know, the offer to be my flatmate still stands,” Jongin said earlier after bumping his head on the ladder, but Soojung likes the little pocket containing her life and the fact that everything she needs is within arm’s reach. Besides, she’d stayed over at Jongin’s with a bunch of friends before and she knew that he rarely - if ever - wiped the bathroom mirror.

“How much was it, by the way,” Jongin asks as he pulls open a lid and slides the bowl over to her. Soojung looks at the receipt, and does a double take at the scribble on the top of the page.

_Out in the water._

She folds up the receipt and stores it in her pocket. “Don’t worry about it. I owe you, remember?”

“Thanks, but I’m still holding out for that 5-course meal,” he grins and picks up his chopsticks.

“You might have to wait a while for that,” she grins back, picking up her own.

“For you,” he sighs, “I’d wait forever.”

 

 

 

 

_16 October _._

_We went fishing in the ocean, except the ocean was full of stars. It was really pretty. Jinri caught a little glowing fish. We skipped stars and I managed to make 6 skips. Jinri could only do 4. Out of all the places we’ve been I think this is the best by far._

 

 

 

 

Through her balcony door lies a great expanse, shimmering and pulsing as far as she can see. The sky is dark and so are the waves lapping at her feet, as if the whole world has just become one connected cosmic ocean. Several stones glow at her feet along the rocky shore, and she picks up a particularly smooth, flat one and tosses it into the water. It skips three times, then disappears.

She can’t see anything past the gloom, but the scene is mesmerising. She feels a strange sense of peace, and she almost wants to sit down and just sit there for the rest of eternity. But that’s not what she’s here to do.

She must have gotten it wrong. Maybe she’d had another dream before with water.

Then a voice, calling out from somewhere beyond the horizon. She turns, eyes scanning the area. She can see nothing. Then,

“Soojung!”

Her heart is pounding her chest, in time with the crashing of the waves on the shore. Is it her imagination, or does the water seem more unsettled now? Foamy remnants of shooting stars wash up against her feet, and she strains her eyes trying to find the owner of the voice. It calls her name again, the voice from a distant star, and a huge great moon swims into view underwater. It thrusts a faint gleam through the waves, and she can just make out the shadowy figure standing on the other side of the shore.

She wades in without even taking off her shoes, clothes clinging to her body. Still in the shallows, she plunges her hands into the water, cupping it and lifting it to her face. It feels slightly chilly, almost insubstantial, and drips through her solid palms back into the sea. Something must be happening, she concludes, that she can feel and touch things now. She must be getting closer.

“I’m coming for you, Jinri,” she whispers across the starry expanse. “Just hold on.” And she dives in to the waves.

She hadn’t expected it to be this hard, being only half solid, but with each stroke the waves seem even more hell bent on fighting her. She grits her teeth, struggling on, when with a huge lift and crash she’s pushed completely underwater. For a second she almost forgets that this a dream, and then her head breaks the surface and she heaves in big gulps of air, tasting ash on her tongue. The shore she’d left behind is blazing. She flails in the water with alarm, only to be pulled back in by another wave that breaks over her head.

She’ll drown here, in a cosmic ocean. Surrounded by stars. Poetic justice, she thinks. To be made from stardust and to return to it.

She opens her eyes, watching the bright orange glow from the safety of her underwater grave, no longer struggling against the tide. In return, the ocean stops thrashing around, stilling itself and keeping her suspended in its clutches. Just floating, watching. Waiting. Until a muffled call breaks the sudden stillness, and she twists around.

A hand breaks through the surface of the water, stretching itself out towards her. She kicks her legs furiously, but they’re dead weight to her now. Her hand reaches out, out, out - she’s so close to those long pale fingers – when something warm wraps itself around her ankles and pulls her down into a starry abyss.

 

 

 

 

Haunted, that’s how she describes it. She’s nothing but hollow feelings and empty expressions. Every night, she replays that exact moment before she was snatched away by some cosmic intervention. She was so close. As close as her fingers touching the window of a train speeding by. She hasn’t heard from Jinri since.

Jongin hands in his resignation a few weeks later. He doesn’t say anything to her, but she sees it in his expression when he emerges from their boss’ office, hands in his jacket pockets as if he’d just casually sauntered in and out for nothing more than a brief chat about the weather.

She returns to the arcade to do more research on her feature article. It has none of the menace she felt the last time she was there, as if whatever weird presence that had occupied it had simply vanished. A wizened old woman sits at the counter at the back of the room, a counter she easily spots the minute she enters it. Like before, not all of the machines are in working order. Unlike before, none of them send her messages.

 _Are you still out there? Can you hear me?_ she types out on her pager and sends out. It always bounces back to her in the form of an unsent message. She hurls the pager at the wall, where it leaves a small dent, buries her head in her hands. She should’ve known better than to think for a second that somebody – even somebody in another universe – could ever save her.

So she goes back to being just Jung Soojung, newbie journalist, working 9-5 on an article she never really cared about, stuck in a job she no longer believes in. Once, writing had been her escape. Now it holds her prisoner, caging her in with all the words she can’t say.

 

 

 

 

“Hey,” Jongin holds up a pizza box with a disarmingly friendly grin when she opens the door. “Thought you’d be home. Let’s hang.” She doesn’t say anything, just steps aside and lets him close the door behind him. “I brought some beer too so we can have a proper party,” he announces, setting a six-pack on the table.

“What are we celebrating?” Soojung asks almost scathingly, taking the pizza box from her and setting it on the floor. Jongin removes his jacket and seats himself, leaning against the open balcony door. He looks at her warily.

“Just having dinner with an old friend,” he says cautiously. It’s so not his style that Soojung’s irritation only grows, like black sludge spreading through her chest and coating her insides. “Isn’t that something to celebrate?”

“Hmm.” She cracks open a bottle and passes it to him. He doesn’t take it.

“Okay, seriously,” Jongin frowns and crosses his arms over his chest. “What’s going on with you? I know you’re the last person to be all sunshine and daisies and you can get a little weird when you’re stressed but what – did I do something to you? Are you mad at me because I quit? Is that it?”

She looks at him, properly _looks_ at him, and she doesn’t recognise the person looking back. A small part of her is defiant, but another part whispers _this is all your doing._ And maybe she had it coming, keeping people at arms’ length all her life. Only letting them in when she felt like she needed them. Taking in their kindness and care and having nothing but grateful silence to give in return. Can she put this into words now?

They’re at the fork in the road now. If she wants she can veer right and put an end to all this… what she’s deemed as a shallow friendship from the beginning. She can choose to ignore the pleading look in Jongin’s eyes. She can choose to leave him behind, if it means she might be able to find Jinri. Or she can choose to keep going down the road of reality. To stay in the here and now.

“I’m not mad because you quit,” she says evenly, calmly. It’s unsettling how genuine the lie feels on her tongue. “I’m not mad at you. Really.”

“Then what is it?” His expression doesn’t change, arms still folded. “If it isn’t me then what is it?”

“It’s hard to talk about now.” She feigns a smile to cover up the spike of irritation in her throat. “I’ll tell you someday.”

“Come on, you can tell me now,” he cajoles. “We’re good friends, aren’t we?”

“Are we?” Soojung snaps without warning. The black sludge is pouring out of her mouth now, and she doesn’t even remotely feel like stopping it. “You mean like annoying the crap out of me with your flirting and pretending to help me but not really mean it? Because if that’s what friendship is to you, then you’re the greatest friend in the world, honestly.”

Jongin stares at her, looking totally bewildered. Then the bewilderment is replaced by a look of deep, deep hatred. “You really think you’re the saddest person out there, don’t you?” he sneers. “That you’re the only one who suffers and finds the world unbearable to live in. You don’t even know that the way you live is a _choice_.”

“Oh please, I would never recommend a friend to work at the hellhole you just abandoned me to,” she spits. “You knew it was a crap place to work in, didn’t you?”

“You needed a job!”

“I wasn’t that desperate!”

“Then maybe you should have thought about that before you signed the contract,” he says icily. He stalks to the chair and grabs his jacket. “Next time you have an existential crisis, leave me out of it. I just can’t watch you destroy yourself anymore.” He gathers up his shoes, then pauses with his hand on the door handle. “Hey, remember that time in uni when you got really drunk and told me about your sister?”

Soojung’s blood freezes.

“You’re not mad at me for quitting. You’re mad at her for leaving you behind. And you’re mad that you don’t know how to move on.” He wrenches open the door and slams it behind him.

Soojung picks up the small hand mirror on the bookshelf and hurls it at the closed door. It explodes into a million glittery fragments, all her hate and frustration and anger reflected in the shattered pieces on the ground. A breeze suddenly ripples through the still open balcony door, fluttering open the pages of the dream diary on the table before dying down as if it was never there.

She picks up the book cautiously, eyes tracing down the page.

_6 April _._

_I dreamt I was in a strange city. It was white and cold and there was nobody around. A girl suddenly appeared in the middle of the street. I thought it was my sister but when I got closer it wasn’t. She asked me if I was sad. She told me that if I was ever sad I only needed to call her and she’d come and save me. She was really nice and she had very pink cheeks. Her name was Jinri._

Soojung closes her eyes, then flips the page backwards to what she knows is the very first entry of the book.

_5 April _._

_Sooyeon left us last night. Mum says she’s in a better place now. If I knew where she was I’d go and look for her. Even if it’s in another universe. I’d do anything._

_P.S.: This is the worst day of my life._

 

 

 

 

Reaching for another bottle of beer, she comes to the dim realization that there aren’t any left. She pushes herself off the floor, and the room spins around her. It doesn’t matter. She needs more. Clumsily putting on her shoes, she stumbles out the door and into the night.

 

 

 

 

It’s cold. Stark white and cool greys, like a blank model of a city that someone forgot to add any sort of life to. A city as dead and despondent as she feels.

And above her head, a swirling expanse of deep indigo, dotted with red and yellow and purple sparkles. In the centre of it all, the biggest star just beginning to tear itself apart, burning a fierce blue.

Soojung looks around, not surprised that there is no one but her. She starts walking down the never-ending boulevard carving through the centre of the city, stopping when she passes the building she started from for the third time. If this place is a reflection of her psyche then she can think of nothing else that best represents her soul. She can keep wandering, searching, but she’ll always be going round in circles. Thinking she’s moving forwards when she’ll always be stuck in the same place.

Thunder cracks overhead, and she glances up at the exploding star. It’s even bigger now, waves of brilliant orange trimming the edges of the explosion. It won’t be long until it comes for her. She supposes it would be just like the other times, where she’ll feel nothing and wake up back in her body. So she doesn’t panic when a shockwave pulses through the city, making buildings sway around her. She doesn’t panic when the second one shatters windows, falling glass gleaming in the brilliant radiance of the supernova.

And in those glimmers of astral glass, a figure. A girl, taller than her. Hair up in a bun, strands curling at her cheeks.

When the last shards fall, Jinri stands at the corner of the next block.

Soojung holds her breath, wanting to believe. Jinri looks around, as if searching for her, and then yells out something, obscured by a sudden boom of thunder in the backdrop. A light wind begins whistling down the street, and Soojung looks up to see the whirlpool beginning to form around the axis of the star. She doesn’t think. She just runs. Across the street Jinri starts running too.

They meet in the middle of the street, breathless and unmoving, as if they’re both afraid that if they move any closer they might both just disappear. Jinri’s expression is a mixture of elation and sorrow. Soojung suddenly feels totally tongue-tied.

“It’s really you,” she breathes. “After all this time.”

“And I finally found you,” Jinri’s eyes curve into half-moons. She takes a step forward, and Soojung unconsciously mimics her.

“How did you know it was me? The first time we met?”

Jinri out a crumpled, folded wad of paper from her pocket with one hand. “I found this,” she explains. “Back then. That’s when I knew you needed someone.” The wind catches the sheet and it billows out into a worn looking paper lantern. Written on it in black permanent marker, the words _I’ll look for you, even if I have to cross a thousand universes to find you. – Soojung._

“That was for my sister,” Soojung says sadly. “She never got it.”

“She never will,” Jinri replies softly. “But I did.”

With a sudden loud roar of wind, the world falls apart around them, streetlights narrowly missing Soojung as they come crashing down. The buildings break into pieces, falling to the ground in the form of mirror shards. Soojung’s foot slips on one and she tumbles, grazing her knee on the pavement. She barely registers that she can feel the pain when a gust of wind has her clinging to one of the few remaining lamp posts. Jinri is hanging on to the next one. She’s so close that Soojung can see both the joy and fear in her eyes.

“I’m sorry I forgot you!” she calls out, taking a step against the wind. Pieces of broken glass and mirrors streak past her, cutting her hands and face. “I didn’t mean to!”

“I’m sorry too!” Jinri pants, reaching out to her too. “For leaving you without saying goodbye. For dragging you back here without any warning.” Their fingers are inches apart, but neither of them seem to able to let go of their posts. Soojung’s hair feels like little blades whipping across her skin.

“I didn’t know how much I needed you,” Soojung cries. _Sometimes you have to know when to let go_ , says Jongin’s disembodied voice in her ear. So as her feet begin lifting off the ground she lets go of her pole and lunges, fingers catching hold of Jinri’s.

The ground splits open, but Jinri is grasping both her hands in hers as the wind spirals them both up to the sky. “Why didn’t you come looking for me earlier?” Soojung asks as one of her hands slips out of Jinri’s. She fights against the force pulling them apart, grabbing a hold of her wrist.

“I didn’t know how much you needed saving,” Jinri smiles, and in that smile Soojung feels all her own heartache and her loneliness, the grief at always losing everyone she loves rushing back in to her. Reclaiming feelings that she’d somehow lost somewhere along the way. For the first time since her sister passed, she wants to keep Jinri safe. To take all of her sadness and make it her own. But try as she might, she can’t get the words out.

An almighty crack fills the air, and the sky itself begins to split in two. The wind screams in Soojung’s ear, and her fingers begin to slip from Jinri’s. “What do you mean I needed saving? You saved me once, a long time ago. I came here to save _you_ , and I’m sorry I’m so bad at it,” she says mournfully.

“But you’re here now, and that’s all that matters.” Jinri’s eyes are bright, despite the sadness written on her eyebrows. “You _have_ saved me, Soojung, and now you need to save yourself.”

“Wait, tell me where to find you!” Soojung cries out as the force grows stronger. They’re clinging to each other’s hands with every ounce of strength they have, but it just isn’t enough. The world flashes in one hot, blistering blast, and then all is silent. When the flash disappears, microseconds later, they’re suspended in space, with nothing beyond them except the stars.

“When you don’t need me anymore,” Jinri whispers into the void, her eyes as deep and glittery and wonderful as the deepest part of the galaxy, “that’s when you’ll find me.”

Soojung’s hand slides right out of hers, feeling herself barrelling backwards through the confines of space and time, passing icy planets and lonely asteroids and bustling galaxies until she slams back into her own body, safe and sound on planet Earth.

 

 

 

 

She awakens in an unfamiliar room, with an unfamiliar blanket over her and an unfamiliar (and slightly lumpy) couch underneath her. It smells oddly comforting as she looks around, shielding her eyes from the glare of the sun streaming in through the window. It hurts her eyes, and she lifts a hand to shield them. A hand that, only minutes before, held Jinri's in it. If she concentrates hard enough she can still feel her warmth encircling it. Keeping her safe.

“Good, you’re awake,” says Jongin, entering the room with a steaming mug in his hands. His eyes are worried where the corners of his mouth are not. “Here, drink this.” He shoves the cup into her hands and takes a seat on the floor. “Seriously, what are you playing at?”

“What am I doing here?” Soojung groans, head throbbing as she pulls herself up and takes a sip of some very hot, very strong coffee. She chokes.

“I found you passed out on a bench in the park,” Jongin explains. His tone could freeze ice. “You couldn’t wake up and obviously I couldn’t let you sleep out there because even if I’m a shit friend at least I still have some semblance of a decent human being.”

Soojung feels the sting of his words, and sets the cup down. They might have passed the fork in the road but she still has time to reverse and turn down the other lane. Swinging her legs on to the floor, she turns to him. “Jongin. I’m…” she blinks, and steels herself to look at him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said all those things last night. I… I was having a hard time and I didn’t know how to deal with it. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. You’re… you’re a good friend. Better than I deserve.”

“You’re damn right I am,” Jongin says vehemently. Then he catches her wince and his expression softens. “You’re right, maybe I shouldn’t have told you to take that job when I knew how bad it was and that I wasn’t going to stay there any longer. But you needed help and that was the only way I knew how to help you. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry I signed that contract,” Soojung laughs, and sudden tears begin to flow down her cheeks. She wipes them with the cuff of her sleeve, looking at them in wonder. She hasn’t properly cried since her sister’s funeral.

Jongin takes a tentative seat beside her, keeping a little distance. “Seriously, what happened? I feel like I lost you these last couple of months.”

“I was looking for someone,” she confesses. “Someone very important.”

“Did you find them?”

The infinite galaxies in Jinri’s eyes. The warmth of her hand as they floated amongst the stars. _Now you have to save yourself._ Soojung realizes now that the person she’s been looking for the most, all this time, has been herself.

“I did,” she nods. “But I had to let them go.” Her face crumples. Jongin only hesitates for a fraction of a second before putting an arm around her in silence. The sun streaming through the window feels warm on her back as she buries her face in his shoulder and holds on tight.

 

 

 

 

_23 May _._

_Dear Jinri,  
I will never forget you again. I’ll look for you, even if I have to cross a hundred universes to find you. I’ll definitely find you. So wait for me._

_Soojung._

 

 

 

 

 

Soojung releases a sigh of relief as she snags an empty seat on the platform. Some days she’s lucky and some days she has to stand, but she’s beginning to learn that it’s all just part and parcel of life. Setting her bag on her lap, she pulls out Parallel Worlds and opens the page at her bookmark. It’s her second time reading through it, and she doesn’t mind that sometimes she still doesn’t quite understand some of the more science-y bits. She once felt the effect of an exploding star, in a maybe dream. Reading the book is a way for her to keep that memory alive.

She never astral projected again, even though she tried multiple times. Because that’s what it was called, as she found out later. So maybe they were dreams, but maybe they really were all the times her soul left her body and went on its own intergalactic adventure. So she called them maybe dreams.

She finished her article and promptly quit the next day. Strangely enough, the article made the rounds and she now, a year later, has a new job at a major magazine publication, writing opinion pieces on actual issues and interesting topics and not on abandoned suburban game arcades. She and Jongin meet up every other week to catch up and gossip about their respective workplaces. And next week he’ll be helping her move into her new apartment.

So she’s happy. Mostly. Except for the small nagging fact that she’s still looking for Jinri. And maybe she’ll never stop.

The train arrives and she gets up, the wind blowing her hair off her shoulders. She still likes to look for herself in the windows. Of course, it’s always her looking back. The doors open and she gets on, sitting down with her bag tucked between her legs. She resumes her reading, only tearing her eyes away from the page when the train stops at the next station and someone bumps into her foot. She spots a pair of pale looking legs seat themselves opposite her, and looks up.

Short auburn hair and bright red lipstick. She has a tiny mole on the end of her nose, and her cheeks are as smooth and perfect as a peach. Her eyes are as wonderfully bright and dark as the far reaches of space.

They stare at each other for a minute of dazed silence. Then Jinri’s face lights up like a thousand twinkling stars, and Soojung can’t help but smile back.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Just wanted to add a huge THANK YOU to E for being an absolute star, for pretty much putting my name into olymfics this year, for all the encouraging words and giving me hope that this fic might actually become something coherent! Also to S for helping indecisive me pick a pairing, I didn't mean to abandon you senpai
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> This fic was written for K-Pop Olymfics 2019 as part of Team Alternate Universe 2. Olymfics is a challenge in which participants write fics based on prompt sets and compete against other teams of writers, organized by genre. Competition winners are chosen by the readers, so please rate this fic using [this survey](https://forms.gle/bPf7UNoxbP3BqiJj9)


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